Free Republic

My father is Black, and my mother is Puerto Rican. As a biracial woman, I'm very familiar with questions like, "What are you?" "But what do you consider yourself?" and insinuations of "But is she really Black?" And as much as I wish I could say this type of thinking was unique to my childhood or some less-progressive era long ago, it's something I still deal with today. Yup, in 2018. For some people, regardless of their race (and sometimes even my own friends and family) it's apparently very difficult to understand the concept that a person can proudly embrace...

Labour’s Shadow Chancellor and right-hand man to party leader Jeremy Corbyn has said it is his “job� to “overthrow capitalism� and “radically� transform society, whilst praising the former leader of socialist Venezuela. John McDonnell repeatedly and emphatically backed bringing down the UK’s system of free enterprise and trade in an interview with the BBC, as well as calling for private firms to hand over their profits to the state. The man who Labour would put in charge of the Treasury, tasked with running Britain’s economy, said he aimed to transform society “in a way that radically changes the system�....

The ceremony itself featured an African-American bishop who cited the American civil rights movement and quoted Martin Luther King Jr. as often as he did Jesus. The couple opted for a secular song, “Stand by Me,” performed by a predominantly black gospel choir—jaws literally dropped—in addition to old-school Christian hymns sung by the congregation. The traditional Anglican vows were altered slightly to allow the outspoken feminist Markle to opt out of the traditional promise to obey her husband. While the acceptance of people of color into the royal fold is a welcome and long-overdue change, the acceptance of divorce and...

(Nigel Farage at :52)"...... but other things are going on and there's a, I really think very big story out there and you'd struggle if you went through today's newspapers to really find it, the 'Sunday Times' has done more on it than anybody else, but it's what's going on in Italy. Often we get the impression in this country from those that wish us to remain in the European Union and would like to force a second referendum on us that we're the ones with the problem that everything in Brussels and across the EU is hunky dory. Well...

Doomed? Why Iran's Economic Mess Will Get Worse Simon Constable The matter at hand is the decision earlier this month by the Trump administration not to certify the so-called nuclear deal, and that means Iran will soon be subject to harsh U.S. sanctions. Overall the result will be a squeezed economy. Current situation Even the latest official statistics for the Iranian economy don't look good. The unemployment rate stands at 11.9% and the inflation rate at 8.3%, according to TradingEconomics.com. However, at least some of the government figures may be more aspirational than actual. Take, for instance, the inflation rate....

GERMAN BANK TO HALT IRAN TRANSACTIONS IN JULY BY REUTERS MAY 18, 2018 21:25 BERLIN - Germany's No. 2 lender DZ Bank said on Friday it will suspend financial transactions with Iran in July following U.S. President Donald Trump's pullout from the nuclear deal with Tehran. Trump's withdrawal of the United States from the accord and his order that sanctions be reimposed have led several European companies to announce their exit from Iran, including French oil major Total earlier this week. "We will completely suspend our foreign payment transactions related to Iran starting July 1st," said a spokesman for Frankfurt-based...

Germany's intelligence service BND had in the 1990s obtained from a Russian informer a sample of the poison used against ex-double agent Sergei Skripal, German media reported Thursday, drawing a link to Moscow as the origin of the toxin. Britain has accused Russia of carrying out the nerve agent attack against Skripal and his daughter Yulia in March, but Moscow has denied the claims and argued that the country never had any programmes to develop the chemical weapon, known as Novichok. But German newspapers Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Die Zeit as well as regional public broadcasters NDR and WDR said their...

The marriage of Meghan Markle and Prince Harry is anything but ordinary. Even among royal marriages it’s unique because Meghan is American – and, like many Americans, she is biracial. But while her race isn’t a issue, her nationality is – thanks to the U.S. tax code.Prince Harry, Meet the IRS American citizens like Markle, who was born in Los Angeles, must report their worldwide income to the IRS even while living abroad. (For more, see How to Pay Taxes If You're Overseas.) She will have to file U.S. tax returns and Foreign Bank Accounting Report (FBAR) forms, assuming she...

Rev. Al Sharpton said Saturday’s nuptials between the U.K.’s Prince Harry and Meghan Markle, a biracial American actress, show that white male supremacy is “on its last breath.” "When you got little white girls in Wales saying, 'I want to be like Meghan,' there's a shift worldwide that white male supremacy is on its last breath," Sharpton said. Sharpton was speaking during his weekly National Action Network rally in Harlem as the couple were wed at Windsor Castle, The New York Daily reported. Etc...

(AFP) — Prince Harry and his bride Meghan Markle will be known as the Duke and Duchess of Sussex after their wedding on Saturday, Buckingham Palace announced just hours before the ceremony. “The Queen has today been pleased to confer a dukedom on Prince Henry of Wales. His titles will be Duke of Sussex, Earl of Dumbarton and Baron Kilkeel,” it said in a statement. “Prince Harry thus becomes His Royal Highness The Duke of Sussex, and Ms. Meghan Markle on marriage will become Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sussex.” A dukedom is the highest rank in the British...

Contrary to what has been said in the pro-government media in Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s three-day official visit to Britain this week has turned out to be counterproductive, London-based journalist Firdevs Robison said on her website. She said that apart from supportive lead articles in the conservative Times and the Daily Telegraph newspapers, British Prime Minister Theresa May and her government were intensely criticised for inviting Erdoğan in the run-up to Turkish presidential and parliamentary on June 24.  Human rights and press freedom organisations meanwhile urged May to publicly call for the release of more than 100 journalists jailed in...

Irish psychiatrists are condemning the claim that the repeal of Ireland’s Eighth Amendment prohibiting most abortions is necessary for women’s mental health. “To use ‘health’ as a justification for abortion, when the vast majority of abortions do not take place on any kind of health ground, inverts the true purpose of medicine and doctors who value their calling should have nothing to do with this,” write 24 Irish psychiatrists in a letter regarding the upcoming referendum on the amendment. “Our Minister for Health, for his part, must defend the true purpose of medicine.” The doctors get immediately to the core...

Amidst the screaming headlines about “massacre” and “war crimes” and unsettling pictures of Arab casualties, keep in mind the central question: When is it the right time to do the right thing? That’s the question President Trump faced when considering whether to move the American Embassy to Jerusalem. His three predecessors had used a loophole in the 1995 law requiring the move to give a consistent and increasingly cynical answer of, “Not now, maybe later.” That dodge lasted 22 years, until Trump cut through the nonsense last December with a statement of resounding moral clarity. Now, he said, is the...

Frontline police officers will carry handguns for the first time to cope with the terrorist threat in rural areas, under plans being considered by chief constables. Officers responding to emergencies in remote locations where firearm units cannot be quickly deployed would be routinely armed. Simon Chesterman, of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, said that the proposal was being considered in areas of England and Wales where it was prohibitively expensive to have fully trained specialist units on standby. It will be seen as controversial because Britain has a tradition of unarmed policing and less than 10 per cent of officers...

Britain's last surviving Dambuster says he still misses his crewman as they are remembered on the 75th anniversary of the iconic WWII raids. Speaking exclusively to MailOnline, George 'Johnny' Johnson says he feels lucky to still be alive as he turns 96 later this year. On the night of May 16, 1943, Mr Johnson was one of 113 airmen from the Royal Air Force 617 Squadron to fly to Germany for one of the most complex military operations of the war. Operation Chastise set out to destroy three dams deep within Germany’s Ruhr valley in order to set back the...

Investment in the UK’s low-carbon economy has fallen dramatically, endangering jobs and putting in doubt the government’s commitments on climate change, an influential committee of MPs has warned. Funds going into renewable energy, the mainstay of the low-carbon economy, fell more than 50% in 2017, having dropped by 10% in 2016, bringing annual investment in the sector to its lowest since the financial crisis in 2008. The MPs also said the government was failing to implement policies to cut emissions from transport, heating and industry, and called on ministers to consider raising a “sovereign green bond”, as other countries have...

British employers hired many more workers than expected in early 2018, a tentative sign that the economy's weak start to the year may be temporary, as the Bank of England hopes. Employment rose by 197,000 during the first quarter, the biggest jump since late 2015 and far exceeding the 130,000 consensus expectation of a Reuters poll of economists.

... “It’s not just gender, it’s also your background that’s equally important. Some of these things are changing. Leadership in the church needs to reflect the communities we serve. There is work to do about how we encourage vocations from people who may be working-class, people who’ve not had a traditional straightforward academic pathway, people from BAME [black, Asian and minority ethnic] groups. The system may need to be different.” The appointment of Mullally, 56, to the No 3 position in the church after the archbishops of Canterbury and York surprised many who believed the capital’s strong conservative traditions ruled...

The first senior African-American bishop in the U.S. Episcopal Church has been asked to preach a sermon at the wedding of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle this coming Saturday. Kensington Palace has announced that Prince Harry and Markle have asked The Most Reverend Michael Bruce Curry, the head of the Episcopal Church, to preach at the highly-anticipated wedding at Windsor Castle. "Prince Harry and Ms. Meghan Markle have asked that The Most Reverend Michael Bruce Curry, the 27th Presiding Bishop and Primate of The Episcopal Church, give the address at their wedding," the Palace stated in a tweet on May...

Preparations are underway for the grand opening of the new United States embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. While the President won’t be able to attend as he prepares for his summit with North Korea, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump have arrived to do the honors along with a number of other delegates. But not everyone is quite so thrilled with this development, particularly in some parts of the European Union. They were preparing to put forward a resolution condemning the embassy move, delivering a statement which was explicitly designed to “embarrass and isolate the Trump administration� ahead of the ceremony....